The NSW Drug Summit in 1999 produced mostly modest outcomes, sidestepping some difficult but important issues. The prospects now for beneficial change should be better with the evidence gathered in the last 25 years – but are they?

Drug use

In the intervening decades illicit drug use has increased, drugs have become more readily available, stronger and cheaper. Prohibition has comprehensively failed. Reforms to the treatment of the issue have been intermittent, piecemeal and uneven. Drug use is not going away and we need to find the least harmful ways to live with it.

Drug Summit Mark II

It has been announced that there will be a Drug Summit in NSW in 2024. It is said that it will include policymakers, healthcare professionals, community leaders and individuals with lived experience discussing innovative strategies for tackling drug-related issues.

The Co-chairs are to be Carmel Tebbutt, former NSW Deputy Premier and CEO of Odyssey House, and John Brogden AM, former NSW Leader of the Opposition and President of LifeLine International.

It will sit in Griffith on 1 November 2024, Lismore on 4 November and Sydney on 4 and 5 December. Terms of Reference are being developed. They should include, at least, decriminalisation of involvement with drugs in quantities consistent with personal use, ways of removing criminal profits from the market, reducing harms to users and supports for problematic users. Issues of detail such as drug checking, strip searching, drug detection dogs and the special concerns of First Nations people and prisoners should be included.

One needs to ask why a Summit is needed, there being so much evidence already available and recommendations already........

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